Cameo Clips

Book Publishing/Idea Claims

A woman who filed suit over a personal and professional relationship with best-selling author James Patterson can proceed with some of her claims against Patterson, a Manhattan federal district court decided. Sharp v. Patterson, 03 Civ. 8772 (GEL). Christina Sharp claimed that she had contributed in various ways to several of Patterson's books. Patterson moved to dismiss the complaint. In her breach of contract claim, Sharp cited “the natural and foreseeable consequences of Mr. Patterson's failure to publicly acknowledge her contributions to [the novel] Cat & Mouse, his failure to dedicate Cat & Mouse to her and his failure to compensate her for her contributions.” The district court noted that “the complaint presents facts showing damages from the alleged breach, specifically, the withholding of her purported share of the financial proceeds, and thus for the purposes of this motion satisfies the basic pleading requirement with regard to damages in a breach of contract claim.” The court also found that the breach of contract claim wasn't preempted because the alleged contract created a right that didn't exist under copyright law. Neither was Sharp's implied contract claim preempted at this stage of the case. But the court decided that Sharp's misappropriation claim over the Patterson novel “Suzanne's Diary” should be dismissed noting, “Since her complaint alleges that Suzanne's Diary is based on Sharp and Patterson's mutual romance, and that Patterson suggested she model [a book that Sharp wrote] after their romance, it is undisputable that the idea for Sharp's book lacked novelty for Patterson.”

The court also held that while the issue of whether Sharp could show substantial similarity in her copyright infringement claims over “Cat & Mouse” and “Suzanne's Diary” should be allowed to proceed as to the other allegedly infringing works, the “obligation to identify the infringing and infringed works in a pleading is not satisfied by alleging a mass infringement of 69 different copyrighted letters [that Sharp had written] by five different novels.”

A 2003 Russian Federation Directive that purported to show that the federation government had transferred the copyrights in films to a Russian-state-owned entity in 1999 didn't control the outcome of a lawsuit by a U.S. distributor over a 1992 exclusive license to distribute internationally, except for in Russia, 1500 animated films originally produced by the state-owned Soviet film studio Soyzmultfilm (State Film Studio), the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York decided. Films by Jove Inc. v. Berov, 98-CV-7674 (DGT). The licensing agreement had been entered into between the California-based Films by Jove and the private firm Soyuzmultfilm Studio (Lease Enterprise) that was the legal successor to the State Film Studio. When Films by Jove filed a lawsuit alleging copyright infringement, the defendants claimed that a state-owned Russian company rather than State Film Studio, owned the copyrights. The district court granted summary judgment for Films by Jove, then denied the defendants' motion for reconsideration.

Denying a defense motion for reconsideration for a second time, the district court first noted that an expert for the plaintiff who had been a drafter of Russian federation law testified that a directive has the most minimal weight in Russian law. The district court added that the 2003 directive “provides further evidence of continued actions being taken by the Russian government and judiciary to influence the outcome of this United States litigation with the purpose of depriving plaintiff Films by Jove of its right to distribute the animated films in the United States and elsewhere outside of the former Soviet Union.”

Later noting that the United States was the situs of the copyright license, the court added that the act-of-state doctrine didn't apply to this case because the 2003 directive “constitutes a direct attempt to confiscate, without compensation, an American company's property rights in the United States.”

Book Publishing/Idea Claims

A woman who filed suit over a personal and professional relationship with best-selling author James Patterson can proceed with some of her claims against Patterson, a Manhattan federal district court decided. Sharp v. Patterson, 03 Civ. 8772 (GEL). Christina Sharp claimed that she had contributed in various ways to several of Patterson's books. Patterson moved to dismiss the complaint. In her breach of contract claim, Sharp cited “the natural and foreseeable consequences of Mr. Patterson's failure to publicly acknowledge her contributions to [the novel] Cat & Mouse, his failure to dedicate Cat & Mouse to her and his failure to compensate her for her contributions.” The district court noted that “the complaint presents facts showing damages from the alleged breach, specifically, the withholding of her purported share of the financial proceeds, and thus for the purposes of this motion satisfies the basic pleading requirement with regard to damages in a breach of contract claim.” The court also found that the breach of contract claim wasn't preempted because the alleged contract created a right that didn't exist under copyright law. Neither was Sharp's implied contract claim preempted at this stage of the case. But the court decided that Sharp's misappropriation claim over the Patterson novel “Suzanne's Diary” should be dismissed noting, “Since her complaint alleges that Suzanne's Diary is based on Sharp and Patterson's mutual romance, and that Patterson suggested she model [a book that Sharp wrote] after their romance, it is undisputable that the idea for Sharp's book lacked novelty for Patterson.”

The court also held that while the issue of whether Sharp could show substantial similarity in her copyright infringement claims over “Cat & Mouse” and “Suzanne's Diary” should be allowed to proceed as to the other allegedly infringing works, the “obligation to identify the infringing and infringed works in a pleading is not satisfied by alleging a mass infringement of 69 different copyrighted letters [that Sharp had written] by five different novels.”

A 2003 Russian Federation Directive that purported to show that the federation government had transferred the copyrights in films to a Russian-state-owned entity in 1999 didn't control the outcome of a lawsuit by a U.S. distributor over a 1992 exclusive license to distribute internationally, except for in Russia, 1500 animated films originally produced by the state-owned Soviet film studio Soyzmultfilm (State Film Studio), the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York decided. Films by Jove Inc. v. Berov, 98-CV-7674 (DGT). The licensing agreement had been entered into between the California-based Films by Jove and the private firm Soyuzmultfilm Studio (Lease Enterprise) that was the legal successor to the State Film Studio. When Films by Jove filed a lawsuit alleging copyright infringement, the defendants claimed that a state-owned Russian company rather than State Film Studio, owned the copyrights. The district court granted summary judgment for Films by Jove, then denied the defendants' motion for reconsideration.

Denying a defense motion for reconsideration for a second time, the district court first noted that an expert for the plaintiff who had been a drafter of Russian federation law testified that a directive has the most minimal weight in Russian law. The district court added that the 2003 directive “provides further evidence of continued actions being taken by the Russian government and judiciary to influence the outcome of this United States litigation with the purpose of depriving plaintiff Films by Jove of its right to distribute the animated films in the United States and elsewhere outside of the former Soviet Union.”

Later noting that the United States was the situs of the copyright license, the court added that the act-of-state doctrine didn't apply to this case because the 2003 directive “constitutes a direct attempt to confiscate, without compensation, an American company's property rights in the United States.”